


The Things We Did and Didn’t Do

by orphan_account



Category: Happy Days, Who Killed the Fonz?
Genre: 1980s, Bisexual Male Character, F/M, Gen, M/M, Open Relationship, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 19:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20363959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In California, Richie and Fonzie take a turn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted after being accidentally deleted. Originally posted in June 2019.

Part 1  
A week after Richie, Fonzie, Margo, and Martin Jr. landed in Los Angeles International Airport, Richie and Lori Beth dragged the three of them to Santa Monica State Beach.

Pre-production on _Suttree_ had started, and once they actually started production, Richie would be busier than he ever had been. There were plans to actually film on the Tennessee River - not the whole film, but enough that Richie would be gone for a few months.

So if they wanted to show the newly minted Californians what the state was famous for, besides movies, Richie and Lori Beth had to do it now before they lost their chance.

If Richie had known what was going to happen, maybe he would have put off going to the beach a little while longer.

—

The five of them drove down to the beach in Richie’s Corvette: Richie, Lori Beth, Fonzie, Margo, and Martin Jr., who had started going by Marty after seeing _Back to the Future_. It was a change everyone was happy with, since it separated him from his father.

The beach was as crowded as ever, but they found a small spot where they could set up their foldable chairs and towels.

Marty ran right for the ocean, paying no heed to the heat of the sand, and Margo followed him after giving Fonzie a kiss, with Richie close behind.

Fonzie stayed out of the water the whole time. He remained with Lori Beth, who had brought along her copy of _The Stand_ in hopes of finally finishing it. Richie was surprised, though maybe he shouldn’t have been. Fonzie was wearing shorts at Margo’s insistence, but he was also wearing a shirt and his jacket - perfect as always, but not ideal for swimming.

Marty had peppered Richie with questions about swimming, and Richie was suddenly so reminded of Richie Jr.‘s first time at the beach that Richie had to remind himself that this was someone else entirely.

He felt a little jealous of Fonzie, that he got to experience fatherhood for the first time, and at the same time sad that Fonzie hadn’t gotten to experience it before now. Part of him felt guilty that he was showing Marty how to swim, like he was stealing something from Fonzie, but it wasn’t like Fonzie had any shortage of things to teach Marty.

After an hour or so of trial and error, Marty had a passable breaststroke. It was time for lunch by then, but Marty begged to keep swimming for just a few more minutes. Richie was too hungry to see straight, and Margo wanted to stay with Marty, so Richie headed back to the shore to wait with the other two.

Lori Beth wasn’t there, so Fonzie was alone. Or not alone anymore, since Richie was there now.  
It was strange to think of Fonzie as having been alone; the beach was as crowded as Richie had ever seen it. Fonzie was attracting a few stares; some appreciative from older women, but mostly slightly snide, from people who were gawking at him and whispering among themselves.

It made Richie feel oddly defensive. Fonzie knew who he was, and he never tried to hide or change himself. So what if he wore a leather jacket to the beach? What gave these jokers the right to stare like there was something wrong with him?

Fonzie wasn’t looking at any of them, though, he’d spent the whole time watching Margo and Marty and Richie in the Pacific. Probably mostly Margo in her red two-piece, but he managed to tear his eyes away as Richie started to towel off.

“Lori Beth finished her book,” he explained. “Went back to get another one.”

He ruffled Richie’s hair through the towel as Richie dried. Richie glared at him, but there was barely any annoyance in it and it was impossible for Richie to even feign anger when Fonzie was smiling like that, a little cocky and oddly affectionate.

Richie opened the cooler and began rifling through the sandwiches Marion had packed. He took two and handed one to Fonzie, who immediately took a bite. Fonzie had been mildly amused to find out Marion was a vegetarian now, but any qualms he might have had evaporated when he tried the tofu stir-fry Marion had been tinkering with for the last few years.

There were so many people in the water that it was almost impossible to pick out anyone specific, and even the blue of the ocean was almost impossible to see.

Fonzie kept his gaze steady, though, and by following it Richie could catch the occasional glimpse of Margo and Marty against the horizon.

“Lori Beth and I came out here the night we came to Hollywood.”

Fonzie acknowledged him with a slight eyebrow raise and a nod. _Go on._

“Not to swim or anything. Lori Beth was too far along for that, and Richie Jr. was exhausted after the plane ride and half-asleep in my arms, but - just to see. We had just landed in Hollywood, and I wanted to make sure that it was all real.

“It was night, so we were the only ones there, and there was nothing but sea and sand as far as we could see. And the sun started to come up, and everything lit up, and all I could think about was you. It didn’t seem right that we were here because of you and you weren’t with us.”

Fonzie mock-punched Richie on the shoulder. “Ayyyy. I’m here now. And you’re not getting rid of me this time, got it?”

Richie grinned and took a bite of his sandwich. “Got it, Fonz.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. What would your mom think?”

Richie suppressed a laugh - choking didn’t sound like a great idea right now - but he returned Fonzie’s smile.

They ate their sandwiches in companionable silence, and Richie tried not to think about whether Fonzie was warm at all.

Fonzie had always been oddly modest when it came to his body, Richie remembered. He could count the amount of times he had seen Fonzie in shorts - the trip to California for the aforementioned screen test, and a visit to a country club where one of Fonzie’s girlfriends went. And Richie had never seen Fonzie without a shirt. He had occasionally wondered about that, what Fonzie felt like he had to hide, if he was uncomfortable with his body, or if that was another one of Fonzie’s rules, that he only got undressed for his dates.

Fonzie turned his head a fraction of an inch as he finished chewing his sandwich. He smiled a little, and any fear Richie might have felt at being caught staring evaporated.

“Something on your mind, Red?”

Richie swallowed his last bite and indicated the jacket with a quirk of his head as he propped himself up on his elbows. “Aren’t you warm?”

Fonzie’s smile broadened, becoming something warm and fond and familiar. He reached a hand out and placed two fingers under Richie’s chin, like he wanted to get a better look at his face. Richie let him. He trusted Fonzie, even if he was admittedly unsure where Fonzie was going with this.

Fonzie leaned in and kissed him. It was just a momentary brush of his lips against Richie’s, then Fonzie pulled away.

He kept staring at Richie, eyes darting across Richie’s face like he didn’t want to miss any of Richie’s reaction to what had just happened.  
Unfortunately for both of them, Richie had no idea how to react to what had just happened, beyond slack-jawed shock. He wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing, that the heat hadn’t seeped into his brain and made him hallucinate.

But there was no hallucinating the way Fonzie was looking at him, a little guarded and yet hopeful all at once.

Richie stood up, a little too quickly. “I’m going to see what’s keeping Lori Beth. Think you’ll be alright here?”

He hesitated, suddenly feeling guilty, like he had betrayed Fonzie’s trust somehow. Even though if anyone had betrayed anyone here, it was Fonzie. Richie was married, happily married, and Fonzie and Margo seemed perfectly happy together, too. Why would Fonzie want to throw all of that away?

If Fonzie was hurt by Richie brushing him off, he didn’t show it. He shrugged and tilted his head forward, and Richie turned to see Margo and Marty on their way through the throng of people, both soaking wet and looking absolutely jubilant.  
Richie had nothing to be sorry about. Fonzie had a gorgeous, wonderful girlfriend who loved him, and who he loved, and he was going to be fine.

He turned back around and jogged away. The idea of talking to Margo right now filled Richie with dread.


	2. Chapter 2

On the flight to Tennessee, Richie finally broke and told Margo everything.

He hadn’t intended to. If Richie could have gone the rest of his life without thinking about the kiss ever again, he would have. Especially since there was _Suttree_ to focus on, casting and crew and setting up the shooting schedule.

But even as Richie threw himself into the movie, Fonzie remained in the back of his mind. It was impossible to not think about Fonzie in relation to _Suttree_, not when the movie had started out as an unconscious tribute to Richie’s absent best friend, and not when Fonzie was here in California with Richie. It was surprisingly common for Richie to come home and find Fonzie there, catching up with Marion, discussing astrology - or more accurately, listening to Marion talk about astrology, confused but interested.

Not to mention that Margo was there throughout pre-production. She was refreshingly hands-off as far as producers were, in Richie’s experience, but she liked to be there every day, just to watch. Richie very well couldn’t tell her not to come, not when she was financing the whole thing, and even if he could he wasn’t sure he would. Richie was embarrassingly green when it came to directing, and he hadn’t really anticipated how stressful it would be. It was kind of a relief to have Margo around, watching intently with undeniably interested eyes, only asking the occasional question that usually made everything click into place for Richie.

Richie suspected this was how Margo had approached mechanics when she had been learning the tricks of the trade from Fonzie.

Richie could see why Fonzie had fallen in love with her.

The problem was that Richie couldn’t think about Fonzie without thinking about that day at the beach, and Fonzie holding him by the chin, and pressing their mouths together easily and affectionately. Richie has gone over it in his head a hundred times, trying to figure out if he had misinterpreted it, if it had been a kiss between platonic friends and nothing more.

Admittedly, that was stupid, but Richie was desperate.

The guilt was eating at Richie, and if he didn’t say something soon his work was going to suffer for it.

The breaking point came when he and Margo left Hollywood for filming in Tennessee. Lori Beth and Fonzie had been there to see them off at the airport, and Lori Beth had kissed Richie goodbye, and Fonzie had kissed Margo goodbye. Then Fonzie had hugged Richie, and if the kiss had never happened Richie probably wouldn’t have wondered if Fonzie didn’t hold him for just a split second too long.

The question stayed with him as he and Margo boarded the plane, and right as the plane lifted off, Richie blurted out to Margo “Fonzie kissed me.”

Margo turned her head to look at him, eyebrows raised in mild surprise. If Richie wasn’t being consumed by guilt, it might have struck him as odd that Margo wasn’t completely shocked.

“When we went to the beach. Fonzie kissed me. Nothing happened after that, but I thought you should know.”

Margo didn’t say anything at first. Richie just kept looking at her, searching for any reaction, desperately hoping that he hadn’t just destroyed Fonzie’s first real long-term relationship.

“I already knew.”

Richie could feel the plane moving, but in that moment he could have sworn the world had stopped moving.

“...you did?”

“Of course I did. Do you think Fonzie would kiss someone else without asking me first?”

When she put it like that, it made perfect sense. Richie felt like an idiot as he replied “I suppose not.”

Margo rested a hand on Richie’s wrist. “Look, I know how Fonzie feels about you. I’ve always known. He made that abundantly clear from the start.”

_How Fonzie feels about you_. Richie wanted to ask just what that meant, but instead what came out was “And you don’t mind?”

Margo shrugged. “It doesn’t mean he loves me any less, or that I love him any less. And considering how my relationship with Fonzie started, I don’t have much room to talk.” Her eyes softened as she continued to stare at Richie. Richie glanced downwards, suddenly unable to look her in the eye.

“I know that you haven’t talked about this with Fonzie, and I promise you the last thing he wanted was to hurt you or make you uncomfortable. If you don’t feel that way about him -“

“I didn’t say that,” Richie said.

He immediately regretted it. He had practically admitted something - something he had suppressed since he was fifteen and about to get pounded in an alley. Something that had been there, ignored and unspoken but there for the last thirty years. Something Richie had wanted but never let himself admit that he wanted it, not even to himself.

Until now.

He had told Margo the truth that night in Milwaukee, about feeling drawn to Lori Beth from the moment he met her. It had been easy to describe, easy to put into words. Richie could look at Lori Beth, and look at himself in the mirror, and know who he was and what he wanted, and feel relieved that he wasn’t broken beyond repair in a way that he didn’t have the words to describe.

Before that, there had only been Fonzie. There had been waiting in an alley to get beaten up by the toughest, meanest Falcon in town. There had been talking to him, finding a surprisingly reasonable guy, managing to get through to him, and coming away from it feeling relieved and elated and terrified and most of all confused, and unable to stop thinking about him.

Kind of like how he felt now.

“But I’m married,” Richie said. “I’m married and I love my wife.”

“No one’s saying you don’t.”

“I couldn’t do that to her.”

“No one’s asking you to. Tell her.”

“I couldn’t do that to her either.”

“You couldn’t be honest with your wife?”

Richie buried his face in his hands. He was more tired than embarrassed. “Well, when you put it that way.”

“What was it you said to me that night?” Margo asked. Richie didn’t have to guess what night she meant - she could only be referring to the night that Margo had saved Richie and revealed everything, from her affair with Fonzie to her husband’s duplicity.

“Ah, yes,” she said after a brief, perfunctory pause. “Love isn’t anyone’s fault.”

Richie glared at her. It might have had more effect if he wasn’t glaring through his fingers.


	3. Chapter 3

The night before he’d left for Tennessee, Richie had promised Lori Beth that he was going to call her every night.

They were curled up in bed together, Lori Beth nestled in Richie’s arms as she laughed against Richie’s chest. She sat up to look him in the eye and say “You don’t have to every night, you know. I’ll understand. You’ll be busy calling all the shots.”

“I won’t be too busy to talk to my wife,” Richie insisted, kissing her knuckles as he spoke. “Six months. There won’t be a minute that goes by where I won’t miss the sound of your voice.”

Lori Beth laughed again and kissed him. “When did you become such a cornball?”

“I prefer romantic.”

Lori Beth wrapped her arms around his waist and drifted off to sleep. Richie joined her not too long afterwards, feeling warm and content and guilty all at once.

That guilt had stuck with Richie all throughout filming. For the most part, he managed to compartmentalize it and focus on _Suttree_.

And God, it was thrilling. Everything was coming to life exactly as Richie had envisioned it reading the book and writing the screenplay. There was something spectacular about watching everything come together, about seeing something that had only existed in his head or on paper suddenly exist, where everyone could see it. By the time they wrapped up filming for the day, Richie was left feeling almost light-headed with accomplishment.

But he never forgot to call Lori Beth when filming was over, exactly like he promised. Maybe he was overcompensating for not telling her about what had happened with Fonzie yet.

It wasn’t like Lori Beth was the only person he talked to back in Hollywood. Marion was always there, too, usually listening along with Lori Beth, and from time to time she’d tell Richie about her day. (It somehow got out among the cast and crew that Richie called his mother regularly, something that earned him his fair share of gentle and not-so-gentle teasing.)

And then there was Fonzie.

Fonzie had been like another son to Marion all those years ago, so she’d been overjoyed to have him back in her life. Fonzie and Margo had become regulars at their home for dinner, something Richie had been happier about before the beach.

But he was still happy to have Fonzie there. Mixed in with the confusion and the uncertainty about what to do, Richie was happy to have Fonzie back in his life and he would have done anything to keep him there.

Once Richie and Margo were in Tennessee, Fonzie was still a regular at Richie’s home, and he started staying around after dinner. Marion and Lori Beth were the only people he really knew in Hollywood, after all. It made a degree of sense that he’d be around for Richie’s phone calls home, and Richie couldn’t stop himself from feeling oddly warm when he talked to Lori Beth or Marion, just knowing that Fonzie was there.

That just made Richie feel worse about how he was handling everything. He tried to find a way around it - usually, he’d hand off the phone to Margo halfway through so she could talk to Fonzie. He always ended up staying in the room and listening in, though, because he’d gone years without talking to Fonzie and sometimes it hurt remembering that he’d cut himself off from someone who had done so much, been so much for him.

Richie’s life had been neatly compartmentalized before this. There was Richie Cunningham, the boy from Milwaukee. There was Richard Cunningham, the man from Hollywood, happily married and a father. Never the twain would meet. It hadn’t been until returning to Milwaukee that he’d realized how much he missed everything and everyone from before. Now he was starting to remember why he compartmentalized in the first place.

When Richie and Fonzie talked, it always felt a little stilted. Fonzie was a man of few words, and Richie didn’t really know what to say, because everything he wanted to ask was wrong.

Did Fonzie regret kissing Richie? Did he regret moving out to Hollywood for Richie? What did he think would happen if he kissed his happily married best friend? Even if Margo was apparently okay with Fonzie being in love with Richie and with her, that didn’t mean Lori Beth would be. Hell, that didn’t mean Richie would be.

Richie had to ask him when he got back. After he told Lori Beth everything. Lori Beth was his wife. Richie owed her that much.

—

On the plane back to Hollywood, Margo asked Richie “Have you talked to Lori Beth yet?”

“You were there for most of them,” Richie replied.  
Margo ‘tsk’-ed. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I’m going to tell her when we get back,” Richie said, trying not to sound defensive. “This is something she deserves to hear in person. Not over the phone.”

Margo nodded once, eyes cast down like she didn’t quite believe Richie. Richie didn’t quite believe himself. Maybe this was just him being a coward, like admitting that he did have those kinds of feelings suddenly changed everything irrevocably.

It shouldn’t have. Richie hadn’t made any advances on Fonzie, he hadn’t encouraged him in any way, he didn’t have any plans to do anything. Before it had seemed like telling Lori Beth about this didn’t serve any purpose. But that had been denial, plain and simple. She was his wife, and she had a right to know about this.

—

Fonzie and Lori Beth met Richie and Margo at the airport. Lori Beth embraced Richie first, and Richie tried his best not to lean on her even though he was exhausted.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fonzie and Margo kiss. It was the kind of big, swooping, almost painfully romantic kiss that only happened in movies, albeit not in crowded airports at three in the morning. At weddings or on beaches -  
Richie forced himself to stop that line of thought before he started to think about sand underneath him and Fonzie next to him, pressing their lips together.

He had seen Fonzie kiss women before. But this had a new, different dimension to it. Anyone who looked at them could tell that they loved each other: the way Fonzie’s arm stayed firmly around Margo’s waist, the way she pressed against him like she never wanted to leave his side again.  
It wasn’t jealousy that motivated Richie. He was reassuring himself. Fonzie loved Margo, so he couldn’t be in love with Richie too.

Richie loved Lori Beth, who had buried her face in the crook of Richie’s neck and was softly sighing, so he couldn’t be in love with Fonzie too.

Eventually Fonzie and Margo had to stop, if only to come up for air. Probably more for Margo’s sake than Fonzie’s.

With Margo still nestled against him, Fonzie reached out with his free arm and pulled Richie, still clinging to Lori Beth into an embrace.

Their cheeks brushed against one another. Richie flinched.

It was too much, too soon. And Lori Beth - Richie’s wife, the love of his life - was right there. She probably didn’t notice anything off, because to her it was just two friends hugging each other after not seeing each other for months.

But Fonzie noticed, and he pulled away.

Richie yawned. The exhaustion was real even if the gesture was exaggerated. “See you tomorrow.”

Margo nodded coolly, the very picture of professionalism. Fonzie, equally coolly, nodded. Richie told himself he was imagining the glint of sadness in Fonzie’s eyes. What did Fonzie have to be sad about?

—

Richie and Lori Beth drove back home in silence. He was on the cusp of falling asleep the whole time as she drove. The only thing that kept him awake was the certainty that he had to tell Lori Beth, and he had to do it now, or he’d keep putting it off forever.

But he didn’t say anything. Neither did Lori Beth, until they were parked in their driveway, and Lori Beth took her hands off the steering wheel and let them fall in her lap, clasped together.

“Is something wrong?”

She looked at Richie, concern in her eyes, and Richie wanted to tell her no. Nothing was wrong. Richie definitely hadn’t fallen back in love with his best friend from adolescence. They could go inside, and Richie could say hello to Marion, they could call up Richie Jr. and Caroline and tell them Richie was home safe, and life would go on as it had before Richie had gone to Milwaukee and brought Fonzie back with him.

But that would be taking the easy way out. That would be a betrayal of everything Richie believed in and everyone he cared about.

He cleared his throat and said “Remember the other day at the beach when you asked me if I was feeling alright?”

Lori Beth nodded, mouth curved in uncertainty.

“Fonzie kissed me.”

It came out a little slurred, from exhaustion and terror, sounding more like one word than three.

But Lori Beth heard him and understood. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, her face a perfect portrait of shock.

Richie’s insides twisted uncomfortably and he blurted out “I didn’t kiss him back” right as Lori Beth said “Fonzie’s gay?”

Neither of them said anything - Richie expected Lori Beth to go first, but she just kept looking at Richie expectantly.

“He’s not gay,” Richie eventually said after the silence nearly became overwhelming. “He’s very much in love with Margo. She knows about -“ He gestured vaguely. “He told her.”

“That he’s in love with you too?”

Richie didn’t know how to answer that.

Fonzie had told him that he loved him, the day that Richie had moved his family across the country with Fonzie’s blessing and his help. Richie hadn’t had a chance to say anything else to him, because then Fonzie had just left with the goodbye letter Richie had written last night, finally willing to do what he had wanted to do since returning to Milwaukee, because Fonzie had knocked some sense into him.

Richie didn’t want to lie to Lori Beth. He didn’t want to lie to himself.

“He told me he loved me. Not at the beach, but - years ago. The day we left Milwaukee and came here. He gave me the plane tickets and said he loved me very much.”

At the time, Richie hadn’t really dwelled on that. It seemed, well, small in comparison to everything else that was happening, leaving Milwaukee and moving to Hollywood and Lori Beth’s second pregnancy.

It only really hit him now.

Fonzie loved him.

Fonzie loves him.

As a friend or a brother or something else or all of that mixed together, but he loved Richie then and he still loved Richie now. Enough to send Richie away in the first place and enough to come with him now.

And god help him, Richie loved him back. First from a safe distance, when Fonzie had been a slightly intimidating acquaintance. The closer they had gotten, the more Richie loved Fonzie, loved his innate decency and his not-so-secret kindnesses and the way he saw the world.

It had been easy to forget that away from Fonzie. Returning to Milwaukee, thinking Fonzie was dead, had reminded Richie of everything he’d loved about Fonzie. Discovering he was still alive reminded him of everything he still loved about Fonzie.

Richie still hadn’t answered Lori Beth’s question. He nodded and hoped that that would be enough for now.

“Are you in love with him?” Lori Beth asked.

The question was a knife through Richie’s chest. He couldn’t answer it, not to Lori Beth. Maybe not to anyone, but especially not to her.

Lori Beth was the mother of his children. The woman he wanted to grow old with. The one who had been by his side as Richie had built a career out of nothing.

Admitting that he loved Fonzie felt like the ultimate betrayal. It felt like saying that everything Lori Beth had done for him wasn’t good enough.

Richie took her by the hands and said “I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you. You could have had any man in the world, and you chose me, and I’ve spent every day since trying to be the kind of man you deserve.

“And maybe I haven’t always succeeded, but - I’ll never stop trying.”

Lori Beth didn’t take her eyes off of Richie once as he spoke. When he was done, she closed her eyes and laughed softly.

“You answered my question by trying not to answer my question.”

“Lor-“

“I think I always had a feeling about it,” Lori Beth continued. “It was his idea to name Richie Jr. after you, you know.”

Richie shook his head. “No, I - I didn’t know that.”

Lori Beth nodded. “Yeah. He told me after Richie Jr. was born that he looked just like you. Like a Richie Cunningham Jr. And I said that - that that sounded like the perfect name for him.” She put her hand back on top of Richie’s.

“He missed you just as much as I did when you were away. And I never put the pieces together because you’d never expect a guy like that to be in love with your husband.” She ran her fingers over Richie’s. “I don’t want to fight you, Richie.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Because - because I didn’t want it to matter. I wanted everyone I love to be together, and be happy. I don’t want to stop being friends with Fonzie, I don’t want to ruin everything I have with you, I -“

He laughed, defeated.

“It was stupid of me, huh?”

“You’re a lot of things, Richie, but you’re not stupid,” Lori Beth said.

Richie didn’t know how to answer that.

Lori Beth was looking at him like she had more to say, so he settled for waiting.

“I want to talk to Fonzie.”

Whatever Richie was expecting, it hadn’t been that.

“You - what? What would you talk to him about?”

“We lived in the same house for two years. It’s not like we have nothing in common. And I have seen plenty of him while you and Margo were away.”

Richie swallowed nervously. Lori Beth leaned over and kissed him, just a gentle rub of her lips against Richie’s.

“Let’s just go to bed.” She patted him on the knee and got out of the car.

Richie stumbled out, wondering how he was going to get any sleep when all his exhaustion was replaced with dread.


	4. Chapter 4

Richie semi-successfully managed to get through shooting that day without thinking of Lori Beth, or Fonzie, or Lori Beth talking to Fonzie, and what she was going to say to him. During the moments when his thoughts did wander to his wife and his best friend, he reminded himself that they were adults who could have a civilized conversation, and there wasn’t anything Richie could do but wait and focus on what he could do. Namely, making _Suttree_ and making it good. And if that kept him working well into the night so he couldn’t think about everything else, then that was just a pleasant side effect.

He might have overshot it a little. Around ten at night, even the otherwise ever-watchful Margo had started to nod off. Richie realized that maybe it was time to call it a day.

He drove home with a steady sense of dread.

After he parked in his driveway and went inside, where he found Lori Beth was sitting on the couch. She was reading a magazine, which she closed and set down on the coffee table as Richie came in.

Richie almost sat down next to her. He decided at the last minute not to. If something had gone wrong with Fonzie, maybe the best thing was to just give her space.

“I talked to Fonzie.”

“How did it go?”

“He apologized to me. He said he was sorry and everything.”

Lori Beth sounded surprised, which made sense. Fonzie had famously been unable to say he was sorry back in the day. His mouth would form the words and nothing would come out but a stutter.  
Richie was a little less surprised. The night of the party at Arnold’s, to celebrate Fonzie being alive, Fonzie had said he was sorry to Richie about losing touch after Howard passed away. Maybe it was just a sign of maturity after twenty-some years, maybe it was because he’d been genuinely sorry and that trumped every defense Fonzie had ever built up.

“I think he meant it, too,” Lori Beth said.

Richie nodded. The anxiety he’d been wrangling with all day started to ebb, even if it wasn’t by much.

“Is that all that you talked about?”

“We talked about you, mostly.” Lori Beth smiled a little. “You never told me you talked him out of a gang the first time you met him. Or that you rearranged a graduation ceremony just so he could give a speech.”

Richie shrugged, feeling proud and uneasy all at once. It was so long ago it felt a little unreal. It was oddly reassuring that Fonzie remembered all of that too.

“Did he tell you all the details?”

“He said you got under his skin from the moment you met him and you never really got out, even after you left for Hollywood. And he’s never regretted anything as much as losing touch with you after Howard passed away.”

Richie’s chest clenched uncomfortably. He had already known that, but hearing it said out loud still made him feel oddly unsteady.

“He wanted me to tell you he was sorry about what happened, too. I told him he could tell you himself.”

Richie opened his mouth to say something - what, he wasn’t really sure - but Lori Beth cut him off.

“I should be angry. I _am_ angry, but - should I be angrier? Because I don’t want to leave you, or to tell you to never see him again. I don’t want to do that to you, or Marion, or Margo, or him. He did something stupid, and so did you, but I don’t want to punish either of you.”

She inhaled sharply through her nostrils. “What I want to do is lay down ground rules.”

Richie nodded.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I don’t expect you to immediately jump into bed with him -“

The thought made Richie’s face flush bright red. He hadn’t given any thought to that detail; it had stayed neatly compartmentalized away even after Fonzie had kissed him. It was for the best that it stayed there, at least until this whole mess was sorted out.

“- but I want to know what’s happening, if anything happens. Or even if nothing happens. I don’t want you thinking you have to keep secrets from me to spare my feelings, or that keeping secrets from me will spare my feelings. It’ll only make things worse.”

Richie almost protested that nothing would happen. But that wasn’t what Lori Beth was asking, she was asking Richie to trust her as much as she trusted him. After over twenty years of marriage, he wanted to give her that much.

—

Richie got his chance to talk to Fonzie sooner than he would have liked, when he came home later that week to find his house empty except for the kitchen. He poked his head in, expecting to see Marion, but instead he was greeted by the sight of Fonzie crouched in front of the oven, pushing in a dish with two mitt-covered hands. As he closed the oven door and stood up (with a wince; his back must have still been bothering him), Richie said “You’re cooking tonight?”

Fonzie turned around, not looking even slightly startled to see Richie there.

“Ayyyyy, don’t look so surprised,” he said as he pulled one mitt off, then the other, and put them both on the kitchen counter. “I’m learning.”

Fonzie didn’t have to work now, was the thing. Even with Margo financing _Suttree_, they had more than enough to live comfortably.

It was a nice thought. Fonzie had been working since dropping out of high school. If anyone deserved an early retirement and time to relax, it was him.

But Fonzie wasn’t wired that way. He couldn’t just sit back for long periods of time with nothing to do, even now, and the way he was counteracting that was, apparently, by learning how to cook.

“It helps I got a great teacher,” Fonzie said as Marion came in through the back door.

“Don’t be so modest, Arthur,” Marion said before she kissed him on the forehead. “All I did was give him some advice here and there. Everything else was all him.”

“I just put the spinach loaf in the oven,” Fonzie said.

“You didn’t hurt your back again, did you?”

The expression on Fonzie’s face might have been accurately described as a pout on anyone else. On him, it still managed to look somewhat dignified. Somewhat.

Marion kissed Richie on the forehead. “Margo and Lori Beth went out with Marty. They’ll be back in time for dinner.”

She glanced back at Fonzie with a sympathetic wince and said “I’m going to go make sure we have cold compresses. Just in case.”

Once Marion was gone, Richie was alone with Fonzie for the first time in months.

Not wanting to jump right into what had been torturing him all this time, Richie stuck to the safe, already breached topic of dinner.

He nodded at the pot on the stove. “Soup?”

“Italian vegetable soup,” Fonzie said with a grin. “Just like my Grandma Nussbaum used to make. Except for the ground beef. Mrs. C said to use tofu instead.”

“Think it’ll be as good?” Richie asked.

Fonzie pulled the lid off and stirred it once, then held up a spoonful. “You tell me.”

Richie leaned forward and sipped from the spoon. The quiet slurping sound was almost deafening in the otherwise silent kitchen.

Richie licked his lips, savoring the rich, spiced flavor as it disappeared down his throat. “It’s good. Really good. You sure this is your first time?”

Fonzie beamed in pride, and all Richie wanted was to keep looking at him. He wanted to remember Fonzie like this, alive and here and a part of Richie’s life after all these years, before Richie said what he had to say.

There was nothing left to do but bite the bullet.

“Lori Beth told me she talked to you. About - “ Richie gestured vaguely. “Well. You know what you talked about.”

Fonzie’s smile faded. It made Richie’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

“Yeah. What did she tell you?”

“She set up ground rules. She wants to know what happens, even if nothing happens. She trusts me to tell the truth. She trusts you not to do anything untoward. Not now, at least. She told me you wanted to tell me you were sorry.”

Fonzie started to say something - probably that he was sorry - but Richie cut him off. Even if Fonzie could apologize now without his body shutting down to try and stop him, Richie suspected it still wasn’t an enjoyable experience for Fonzie.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Richie asked. He wasn’t sure if he meant before he had met Lori Beth, or before he had enlisted, or before he had told Fonzie he wanted to go to Hollywood and write movies.

“I didn’t really know until you were leaving,” Fonzie admitted. “And when you were gone for good - I didn’t feel like myself. There I was, just going through the motions because I didn’t know what else to do. I’d done everything I could for you, and you didn’t need me anymore. You had Lori Beth, you had your kids, you had your new home and career and life, and there wasn’t any room for me. I wasn’t going to lay around moping about you, okay?” He softly punched Richie in the shoulder.

His face fell. “And then Mr. and Mrs. C left. I was fine. Until Mr. C died, and it hurt too much to even try. What you said at the beach, about wishing I had been there with you -“ He shook his head. “We’d never be able to have that. It’s too late for a lot of things. I saw a chance and I took it, because I was tired of missing out. Of missing you. I didn’t want to hurt you or Lori Beth. I just knew that if I didn’t I’d regret it more than if I did.”

“I’m still your friend,” Richie said. He wanted to reassure Fonzie of that, at least. “I was still your friend, even when I hadn’t seen you or talked to you after all these years. A lot changed for me, but not that. That will never change, because I love you, too. I never said it out loud, and I should have. Even if I didn’t need you, I still wanted you to be a part of my life. I thought that growing up meant leaving some things behind. I thought it meant leaving some people behind. I missed you so much and I had no idea how much I had missed you until I thought you were dead. And then I thought it was too late. But here you are.”

Fonzie nodded. “Here I am.”

“I just need to sort some things out,” Richie said. “So does Lori Beth.”

Richie thought of _Suttree_. He thought of his mother teaching Fonzie how to cook. He thought of Richie Jr. and Caroline off at college. He thought of Potsie and Ralph and Al back in Milwaukee. He thought of Margo and Marty. He thought of Lori Beth and what he was going to tell her later.

He took Fonzie by the hand. Fonzie’s hands were still as rough and callused as Richie remembered them. Just two men in their forties holding hands in a kitchen, nothing strange there.

“We got all the time in the world now,” Fonzie replied as he folded his fingers into Richie’s. “I’ll still be here waiting for you while you figure everything out.”


End file.
